Strong Ramsey-fications for the Future….

Love him or loathe him (and actually this Londonist thinks he’s great fun), you’ve gotta admit that our Gordon’s a hard grafter. Hey, he’s everywhere – telly, glossy supplements…and the other day he was even trying to get into your kitchen.

Having hobnobbed with young Jamie Oliver on the Big Food Fight, he’s now following the affable Essex one’s lead and trying to raise the, um, steaks on the hospitality training front.

He reckons that the UK’s catering colleges are turning out bland, under-seasoned and under-cooked recruits who do not pass mustard (sorry) in a real catering environment, and so he is setting up his own London academy with matching accreditation for those making and baking the grade. This in a week when McDonalds no less have declared that they are opening the golden arches on a new fast food chiploma.

Wonderful idea, wethinks. Catering is not actually something that can be learned in college (ok, a few basic lessons on hand-washing are helpful) – it is one of those things that should be absorbed by osmosis. The atmosphere of a busy kitchen never conforms to the safe calm of a college lab, and students quickly go to pieces. Apprenticeships are the only way forward for this profession.

Truth is of course that our education system is now so dire that most industries are feeling the need to re-train new employees as they are simply not acquiring the right life skills whilst at school.